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  • I will be installing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on new drive.
  • I will run Windows 11 as well as Mint and Fedora virtualized on this system (not sure yet using VirtualBox or LXD or something else).
  • I will not have dual-boot (system not Win11 compatible).
  • I am not too concerned with full disk encryption (VeraCrypt Keepass will be utilized).

With that in mind, is it still best to simple have / (root) /swap and /home? Does swap come into play with virtualization?

Is there anything else I need to be aware of when partitioning as it relates to using VirtualBox or LXD?

NotTheDr01ds
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paulj
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2 Answers2

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Based on my experience my suggestion would be that:

Download the Ubuntu 24.04.2 ISO from https://releases.ubuntu.com/noble/ubuntu-24.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso, not 24.10 or 25.04.

Burn the ISO to a USB drive with enough space +8GB.

Rufus and BalenaEtcher are usually suitable, in Linux the dd command is also effective.

Start a live session of Ubuntu.

Once the boot is complete, open a terminal and run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gparted
sudo gparted

From gparted, select the hard drive.

Unmount it if it is mounted.

Create a new gpt partition table.

Disable secure boot and fast startup

In the free space, create:

1 giga partition, Efi-System (Fat32).

A 80-gigabyte partition, ext4 system.


Another 12-gigabyte partition, swap system.


Create another remaining partition that you plan to use for Linux, ext4 system.

Apply the changes.

Close gparted.

Close the terminal.

Start the installation.

Choose manual partitioning and select;

Grub, by default, on the hard drive.

The 80-gigabyte partition for /.


The 12-gigabyte partition for swap.


The remaining one for /home.

Continue with the installation.

Using Virtualbox for virtual machines.

Avoid the use of snap. Use the applications from their .deb packages. If they are not available use flatpak.

kyodake
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your partitioning in three areas (root, swap, home) looks fine. Swap not needed with newer versions of Ubuntu (later than 22) any more. Ubuntu will create a swap file instead. But real swap partition will be used if available. You may want to add a dedicated partition for special needs (server data, VM data, ...) and mount it using normal or bind mount just somewhere in the existing FHS (file system layout). Can be handy to get more reliable or more speedy physical devices transparently into the existing hierarchy. Can be altered later.

opinion_no9
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